What changes happened in SEO after hummingbird update from Google

bydianamaria
Last Updated On: 1/11/ 2013

Google is known to embark with a number of updates and algorithm changes. These changes are simply meant to improve the quality of search results and could be called as a positive thing in terms of the searchers over Google and other search engines. However, if you look at the perspective of webmasters and SEO experts, these simply hit back the sites hampering their rankings to a great extent.

Similarly, Google was seen coming out with a new update called Hummingbird in the last month, which really disturbed the rankings of many sites. As per the Google officials, Hummingbird is considered as one of the unique algorithm change, which has implemented the first time since past 10-12 years.

As per reports, this update has a huge impact over the search queries with more than 90 percent of these being affected since the implementation of Hummingbird update. As per the experts, this new algorithm update called Hummingbird update has brought forward a couple of changes, which you need to consider while putting your SEO efforts.

Let’s check these changes that have occurred after the advent of this particular update as under:

Changes in content format

Content has a vital role in search business and a number of updates have always kept an eye over it. This time it is the way of content presentation, which matters a lot. Now, if your site or a blog has content in the form of question and answer then you are likely to rule the search results or else may hamper the rankings.

This however, doesn’t mean that you would now start including content in the form of FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) format but this update only means that you now have to focus more on ‘How to’ articles.

Your content should therefore deal with precise answers or solution in the form of the how to content. That’s the basic change, which has been witnessed post Hummingbird update.

The domain authority of the site

Though with every Google update, domain authority has always been considered, however, with this recent update, the giant search engine has stressed on it in fact more than before. Google now encourages people to incorporate more authoritative kind of content to the people searching out information on it.

One of the best ways Google can do is to find out legitimate websites that carry quality content and good backlinks coming to them. Hence when you get links from certain good quality resources, these can really help in boosting up your presence over search engines.

This is the same idea, which existed in the form of link building things, but this time it has come with greater force from Google. Now, you need to focus more on natural backlinks and through legitimate ways as it has become mandatory for people who want to survive in search business.

The use of Schema Mark up

This (Schema Mark up) is a revolutionary vocabulary, which could be executed over any website employing different languages like RDF, Microdata and Microformat. The rich snippets including the reviews and rating, data highlighter, recipe preparation time, product cost, etc. are termed as the best forms of schema mark up.

The right way to propel Google to understand your content and call it as quality is only by using the scheme vocabulary. There are many webmasters and bloggers who simply do not know about the same and the fact is you can use the same in any kind of content from any niche area.

With this change being incorporated by the latest update from Google, you can leverage from this idea and boost up your search rankings over the SERPs. Following this rule will certainly going to boost up the semantic value of your website and blog, which makes you recognize even a big rush.

Mobile SEO strategies

With the popularity of devices like smartphones and tablets, a number of users now access web via these gadgets. Now, you can also find a steady rise in mobile search so having a mobile friendly website is a must.

The latest update- Hummingbird has focused on this aspect and tried to address the growing number of mobile users. This update now expects from the webmasters to develop a mobile friendly site, which means it can now load faster over the mobile interfaces with simple navigation and precise content for these users.

The most important change you need to consider is to make the mobile friendly site more crawlable as the search engine bots give importance to the sites, which happen to be simple to crawl.

Final word

Though Google has not disclosed the number of changes it expects from the webmasters and SEO experts, yet people who have a good insight about these updates and especially the latest one has listed out these changes. The above changes are now being seen over the web landscape in terms of SEO, which you need to consider in order survive with higher search engine rankings.

We do not believe that Google hummingbird has emphasized on any drastic changes. Rather, they have reinstated the need of niche content that can earn links instead of the conventional policies of procuring links.